


Dear Nina

by MakoFury



Category: Alien: Isolation
Genre: F/F, POV First Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:51:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakoFury/pseuds/MakoFury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda Ripley writes a letter to Nina Taylor, wondering what could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Nina

Dear Nina,

I'm so sorry. I failed you when you needed me. I failed you right when you did exactly as I asked and helped save me. I feel like such a coward for being the only one who made it out of that mess alive. It simply doesn't feel just that I made it out and you were killed because of Marlow's plan to kill those creatures. You weren't the only one I failed but you were the one who had left on the same mission, the person I brought aboard and promised to protect. Maybe that promise wasn't explicit but it was implicit because I was the one who knows all the ins and outs of space faring vessels and your professional skills were less applicable to a couple dozen fucking 9 foot tall monsters with knives for teeth and a spear for a tail. 

When I think back on all my actions that day, all the different courses I could have chosen at different moments, what went wrong and what went right, that moment in Anisedora is the one where I truly wish I had done something different. I was the engineer, if I tried maybe I could have cut through that shielding, stopped that overload myself and then we both could have made it to the shuttle. Or maybe if I had told you to get out of that room faster you could have made it. You could have held my hand on the way out and in the calmness of the cramped shuttle I would have told you that the moment our eyes met, long before cryo, I felt something within me stir. 

So often when people reach a certain point in the company, and it's a point not much higher than I am, they lose sight of their own identity and focus on how to survive and get ahead. It's understandable. We rely on the company for so much, from the air we breath to the food we eat and the music we get to bring with us to the cold and distant reaches of space. Hell, the company left us high and dry solely because we weren't important enough. I saw something that first day, and it was reaffirmed in the days to come, as well as the last day we had together. You had drive, which anyone who works in space needs, but much like myself that drive is not solely one of survival. I know I was driven by the desire to find out what happened to my mother and I thought I'd find out more about you after we got that flight recorder and brought it back to the ship. 

There was so much I wish I had learned about you. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? What were your parents like? What were your hobbies and what were your favorite books? I could find out some of this from your records now but it will never be the same as the excitement of long conversations over a hot drink. I know that you had a lot going on in your head. I know you had infinite depths within you and you had something within you which made you a brave, tough and calm woman. I at least saw that much, I saw that the strength within me I found that day was a strength you had within you as well. Just injured, held captive, you still managed to fight that psycho and if you hadn't I wouldn't be alive now. 

I owe you so fucking much and I'll only be able to repay you by doing the most with what you gave me. I'll remember you, Nina, but I will try my best to meet new people and fucking talk to them while there's still time because if there's one thing I've learned is that space is more violent, unpredictable and deadly than anyone knew. I'll do my best to make every moment count, and I'll do my best to remember your strength, courage and beautiful soul. What little I knew of it. 

The Galaxy is a dark place and it is a darker place without you in it.

Amanda Ripley


End file.
